Blackwater Hall, County Kerry
March 1958
The fallout from the misunderstanding in the garden was inevitable.
If Albert’s aim had been true, Mama would never have been searching the ground for pigeons that weren’t there. Would never have looked left and seen Tomas leaning over Hattie, supine on the path, the wind knocked from her. None of that would have happened. Instead, Tomas would have helped her to her feet. Apologised. Said he was jumpy. Bad with loud noises. Bad with surprises.
She would have hugged him and it would have been all right.
But it didn’t work out that way.
Grandmother had looked at her with mild disdain when Mama carried her back to the house. ‘What’s this?’ Her voice was low and calm, in stark contrast to Mama’s high-pitched hysterics.
‘The gardener. He attacked her. Thank God . . . oh thank God I was there.’ Mama’s hands were shaking, bird like. She’d lost weight since they’d arrived at Blackwater Hall.
Grandmother merely raised a thinly drawn eyebrow. ‘The gardener? Tomas?’
‘Yes, Tomas! Of course. Did I not warn you about him?’
The older woman put one hand out towards Hattie. She, not having been approached by Grandmother before, looked nervously at Mama, who was now so white that her complexion matched the crisp shirt she wore under her tartan jacket.
At Mama’s nod, she stepped forward, lifting her gaze as the old woman knelt in front of her, one hand leaning heavily on her cane. Her breathing was laboured, as though the act of showing interest in her grandchild exhausted her. They had never been so close before. Grandmother’s rheumy eyes were surrounded by sparse eyelashes dabbed with mascara, giving the effect of a poorly made pinwheel. Her look was searching. Not kind. And yet not cruel.
‘Are you hurt?’
Hattie became aware of a firm, warm hand on her upper arm. She looked down and was surprised to see it belonged to the woman in front of her. Mama was now sitting in a chair by the fire; she’d removed her shoes and pulled her knees to her chest like a coiled spring.
‘What happened?’
‘I fell over.’ She looked at Mama as she spoke. ‘The shot, it scared me. I tripped.’
‘And?’
‘Tomas helped me.’
‘What were you doing out there? This time of morning?’
‘Setting potatoes. It’s lucky: St Patrick’s Day.’ At the pursed lips, Hattie began to waffle. ‘He gave me scones and jam for breakfast . . .’
Grandmother nodded and dropped her hands and gave the slightest flick of her head to indicate that the interview was over. Uncertainly, Hattie backed out of the room. Not quite closing the heavy wooden door behind her, she crouched in the dark hallway, ear to the crack.
‘Nancy,’ said Grandmother.
Mama murmured.
The older woman spoke again. The volume of her voice indicated that neither had crossed the floor towards the other. ‘This is the fourth time you’ve asked me to remove the gardener. The first time you suggested that he was poor at his job. Then you said he was lazy. The third time . . . well, I can no longer remember your argument . . . I will ask you once more not to interfere with my staff. Tomas Deenihan worked here with his father, who pulled this garden back from the brink.’ She coughed heavily.
There was silence after that. A rustling kind of noise. The clang of metal. Mama had stoked the fire.
‘I beg your pardon?’
‘I said’ – Mama’s voice was closer – ‘he’s damaged.’
‘Weren’t they all, Nancy? Weren’t you?’
‘Not like that.’
Grandmother said, ‘You must have seen . . . things during the war. You’re certainly not the girl who visited here before.’
‘Well,’ Mama laughed cruelly, ‘you didn’t like her either.’
Footsteps. Not from the room. From down the hall. Hattie pushed into the hollow of the doorway. A door opened. Someone, Cook perhaps, hummed as they crossed the far end of the hallway. The music drifted towards Hattie, fogging the murmurs on the other side of the door.
Grandmother cleared her throat. Her voice was hoarse when she spoke again. ‘Things have been difficult. But we must all learn to live together. If Teddy is to take the reins . . .’
‘If?’
‘. . . then you must learn how to run certain parts of the estate. Firing staff because you have taken against them is simply not done.’
‘The man is dangerous.’
‘We’ve established that Hattie fell of her own accord, and Tomas was merely assisting her.’
‘I don’t trust him. He . . . he looks at me in a strange way.’
Grandmother sighed.
‘And at Hattie,’ said Mama. ‘Also at Albert. He stares.’
‘I hardly think that’s fair.’ Grandmother’s voice moved away, towards the window. ‘The man is never near the house and you spend all your time in the library. With Albert.’
‘You know, Niamh . . . he isn’t right.’ Hattie had never heard Mama use that name before. Niamh. Nee-ve.
Grandmother sniffed. She took two slow steps towards the door, then turned back. Hattie held her ground. Held her breath.
‘Look to yourself, Nancy. Seeing ghosts where there are none. Hiding in the dark. I may not have much liked you before the war, but I did at least envy you. All that potential. All that passion. Charlotte and you . . . peas in a pod.’
A sharp intake of breath. ‘Don’t talk of Charlotte . . .’
Grandmother ignored her. ‘But look at you now.’
Mama’s voice was quiet again. ‘It’s this place. I don’t feel comfortable.’
‘The house is two centuries old. It’s damp. What more do you want me to say? We remain here because the estate is something for local people to look up to.’
Mama laughed cruelly. ‘People don’t look up to this house. They look down on it. Perhaps there’s something in those rumours about the ringfort . . . the luck that’s plagued this family . . .’
‘Families around here are no strangers to grief.’
‘No. But they work through it. They talk about it. You won’t.’
‘I have my own ways of coping.’
Silence. Perhaps Mama was shaking her head. Perhaps she’d wrapped her arms around her body, thinner every day. Perhaps she was doing nothing. ‘Charlotte is everywhere in this house,’ she said quietly, ‘but not in our conversations.’
‘Charlotte is dead. Nothing more.’
‘Yes.’ Quick footsteps towards the door. ‘I know.’
Hattie fell away and scampered under the hall table. It was poor cover, but it didn’t matter; when Mama came through the door, she wasn’t looking for her daughter. She paused and appraised her own reflection in the oval mirror opposite. She frowned at herself sadly; then, a moment later, the look was gone.